


These Three Words

by Traeger



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Korrasami - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Turtleduck Date Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6238240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traeger/pseuds/Traeger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra and Asami go on a date on a turtleduck boat, and Korra muses on declarations of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Three Words

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably a year too late. Ah, well. There isn't really much to say more about this.

The boat rocked gently in the middle of the calm lake as Korra shifted to get into a more comfortable position. The shimmering golden tower in the distance provided a nice contrast to the falling daylight, which casted a purple-orange hue on the horizon.

Tucked at her side was Asami, who had her head in the crook of her shoulder. _She looks so peaceful_ , Korra thought as she leaned back and closed her eyes, listening to the gentle ripples of water when the other boats periodically moved. Brushing her thumb absently on Asami’s arm, she began to hum contentedly to a tune from her childhood.

No one was trying to start a war in some remote part of the world, no one had been eaten by a spirit of late. Cabbage Corp had finally beefed up its quality to be a proper rival to Future Industries. That made for exciting times, both for the industry and the public. All was well, for now.

“Asami?” She murmured, her eyes still closed.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking…”

“Now that’s a change.”

Korra cracked one eye open to see Asami looking at her with that familiar spark of mischief in her eyes. She playfully pinched her shoulder. “Ah, how you wound me, Sato.”

“Only in the best way; through your heart, am I right?”

There was a beat, and they both burst out laughing at the same time. Asami sat up, brushing the hair out of her eyes, beaming. “How bad was that?”

“Wow.” Korra managed before bursting into a fresh round of laughter. It took a while before she settled down, wiping tears from her eyes. “That just hit an entirely new level of corny, like bad corny. Where do you keep finding these things?” She demanded.

“Well, if you thought Jinora’s stash of trashy novels was bad, you haven’t seen Meelo’s”

She opened her mouth, before closing it again. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Good call.” Asami shifted to look at her better as Korra took her arm off her shoulder. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“I’ve been thinking about when it is the right time to tell someone you love them.” Korra tapped the tips of her fingers of her outspread palms together, an unconscious habit of Korra’s that Asami noticed when she was feeling more philosophical than usual. Night began to fall in earnest and except for the glow of the tower and the park streetlamps, darkness surrounded them.

 _This is going to be interesting_ , Asami thought. “Oh? What brought this on?”

“I don’t know. It just occurred to me. We’ve been together for a while now and I just realised I never said it. It’s not like I don’t feel that way about you.”

“And?”

“And…well, isn’t it weird? Why people don’t say ‘I love you’ more often? Maybe even all the time?”

“Funny you should mention that. Mako and I talked about it once.”

“Mako, huh? What did he say about it?”

“He thinks you shouldn’t usually use it casually. Said it has to really mean something. If people toss them out all the time, it’ll go the way of phrases like ‘nice to meet you’, even if you’re feeling anything but. It’ll become something you say automatically… just another platitude.”

“Hmm. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. What about you? Do you agree?”

Asami turned thoughtful. “I…don’t know. Before she died, Mum used to say it to me all the time.  When she’d tuck me into bed each night. It became like a ritual for us. And I doubt she meant it any less each time she said it.” She shrugged.

“But maybe he has a point. Maybe it’s not how often you say it; but maybe you still do need a right time to do it.”

“When is it ever the right time?”

“That’s the question. I mean, I wanted to say it to you in the airship before… before Zaheer.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I didn’t.” Korra agreed. “And now I’m not sure why I didn’t either.”

“I think waiting around for the right time… leaves a lot for regret. You know, I never got to say it back, now that I think about it.”

“Huh?”

“My mum. She’d hug me and kiss the top of my head and say ‘love you’. But I’d be so tired after playing out all day; it’s like my entire body fell asleep before my brain did. So I can still hear her, and maybe I’d whisper it back, but it’ll only be in my head. It was… different with Dad. The first time I ever said it out loud to him, it was in that underground factory.”

“Oh Asami.”

 “Yeah.” Asami let out a sigh. “There’s never a right time.”

“…”

“…”

“Which brings me back to my first question. Why doesn’t anyone say it more often? It’s like this thing we can’t bring ourselves to say unless everyone involved is totally wasted and then the next day we don’t remember if it really happened.”

“Bolin does.”

“But…that’s Bolin. I’m thinking, how about me? Like, why don’t _I_ say it?” Korra spread her palms out. “I mean, I love all of them; you, my parents, Bolin, Mako, Tenzin, Pema, the kids.”

“Well, you’re not in love with them.”

“See, that’s the thing. I loved you, way before I fell _in_ love with you. So I could have said it any time before this. I could have gone up to Bolin and say, ‘Bolin, I love you.’ Because I do. But that doesn’t happen.”

“I’ve a feeling you’re mixing it all up now.”

“I know what you’re trying to say. But no; I want to be able to say it to my family, my friends, to all the people I love in whatever capacity. Love is love. It’s like…I’d do anything; drop everything and go out of my way for any of them.”

“That’s because you’re you, Korra.”

“And the only difference is that I don’t want to kiss any of them. Just you.”

“I think you just answered yourself.”

“Maybe. But it shouldn’t have to be this way, you know? Does it cheapen its meaning to use it often on people we don't love romantically? Or does it reinforce our feelings of together-ness? Life is strange.”

“I don’t really understand it either.”

“Yeah, so – wait. Why are you grinning at me like that?” It may have been very dim, but there was just enough light to make out Asami’s amused expression.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed that you put so much thought into this, or whether it’s adorable that you went on an entire treatise on love because you’re nervous.”

“I’m being serious.” Korra pouted, poking her in the shoulder. “What do you think?”

“Well, in engineering, there’s usually one way to go about things.”

“Which is?”

“Experimentation. It’ll be two-fold. We could either go the route of saying ‘I love you’ every once in a while, or say it as often as we can. And the second one is to only say it to people you’re in love with, or to everyone you care about. Then we’ll compare these two scenarios. But it’ll be impossible in this case. Because there’s only one version of me and you and all our friends and family in this current lifetime. And that’s not even considering the control samples.”

“… ”

“What?”

“I don’t even know why I asked.” Korra blew out a breath. She reached out to cup Asami’s cheek, “I love you, Asami Sato.”

“I love you, too, Korra.” She kissed her gently. When they broke apart, she was left breathless. “Took you long enough.”

“Shh.” Korra whispered, before pulling her in for another kiss.

 Perhaps there was never a right time, and perhaps any time is the right time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, all comments and feedback are welcome. :)


End file.
